My fantastic zone

Do you want to know the reason that Call of Duty hasn’t had a new idea in five years? It’s because it hasn’t needed one.

Normally in a case like this, I’d say yes. I’d say this is nostalgia on an almost reckless level and that we need to make sure we move forward, not back. But this time? This time I’m hopeful. This time I think going over old ground might be really helpful, provided we know we’re doing it and we’re ready for what comes next.

Because here’s the thing: Those old ideas we’re reviving right now? They were really bloody good. That’s why we remember them fondly - the big games of the 1990s were better than the big games of the 2000s, by and large.

For years now, I’ve felt the games industry was stuck in a cynical and boring rut. It seemed like there was an endless cycle of games which were moving us in the wrong direction, that were getting bigger instead of better. Modern Warfares rolled by like they were coming off a production line and, it turns out, they kind of were. Publishers were getting us excited over all the wrong things - release platforms and the amount of playtime and polygons and 3D. The sort of stuff that’s good to know, but which isn’t why games actually matter.

Do you want to know the reason that Call of Duty hasn’t had a new idea in five years? It’s because it hasn’t needed one.

But let’s not get distracted.

The point is that, for a while, the games industry has been like a train slipped off the track; the wheels were spinning but we’ve not really gone anywhere. A few people have tried to push it forward, but even with heavyweights such as Braid behind the engine, progress has been painfully slow.

Now, somehow, we’re back on track! It’s only natural that we have to pick up where we left off and that’s no bad thing so long as we’re able to move forward from here.

Moving forward isn’t going to be easy though. The technology and audiences have changed dramatically while we were delayed and there are ideas about the future which are potentially destructive - but these are barriers we can overcome if we all pitch in. If we can discard the humdrum opinions and yawning justifications of the last few years; if we stop sleepwalking through games and actually start to question them; if we can damn the ideas that hold us back without become entitled brats?

If we have an idea of what we want games to be and start devoting ourselves to getting them there?

This entry was posted
on Středa, Listopad 21st, 2012 at 3:46 and is filed under Ostatní.
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